The word "law" is often on the lips of the Christian Scientist. Very often it is coupled with the words "moral" or "spiritual;" then, moral or spiritual law is referred to. And when the term "law" is made use of, people are usually thinking of some rule of action which has behind it, giving it support, a recognized authority. The authority behind law must be admitted; otherwise, the law would be invalid—no law. Thus, in civic, as in national affairs, when a legislative body accredited of the people makes laws, these laws are respected. It is recognized by every intelligent person how serious an affair it is to try to render null and void any law which has been enacted after deliberate consideration by the authority responsible for it.
Every honorable citizen of every nation has regard for the laws of his country. Some of these laws, it is true, may be far from ideal; but the well-meaning and well-doing citizen respects his nation's laws, while he may labor, it may be, along legitimate lines to amend those which are weak or faulty, in order to secure the utmost measure of justice and equity to one and all alike who are his fellow-citizens. Laws will never be lightly set aside by the honorably minded, because they know that in civilized communities these have been drawn up and passed by those who, at the time, reflected the highest sense of right to which it may then have been possible to give expression.
Civil law had its origin in moral sense, that sense which is found more or less developed in every community, and which itself has its basis in divine Principle, God. The discovery of moral law undoubtedly must have been gradual, just as the discovery of the nature of God Himself was gradual. Bit by bit, men, through the trials of experience, found out the effects of wrong thinking and wrong doing, and of right thinking and right acting upon themselves and their fellow-men; and in process of time, they were able to formulate certain rules of action, which, if obeyed, meant to themselves and to others a greater measure of peace, harmony, and well-being. Thus must the Ten Commandments, that wonderful compendium of moral law, have originated. And nothing is more certain than that Moses and those who followed him out of the bondage of Egypt heard, in every one of these Commandments, the voice of God. To them, every one of the "Thou-shalt-nots" sounded as a direct command, and was a definite law to be obeyed. Each one of them, they recognized, was worthy of all respect, because each was based on Truth, divine Principle; and obedience to them all was bound to result in good to the obedient, since God, good, supported them. The psalmist, referring to "the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly," said that "his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night."
